As we build our movement and fight for justice, skills of all kinds are in high demand. The causes and issues we organize around are as diverse as the communities who call LI home, but there are common tasks, responsibilities, and talents needed across the board. The list includes administration, design, writing, promotion, fundraising, knowing your rights, nurturing community connection, and everything in between!
We Are Long Island is a community centered organizing hub, so we’re looking to our local communities for trainers to empower others with new skills! If you have something to teach that would help others build community power, head to WeAreLongIsland.org‘s training page and submit a description. A hub organizer will review the submission and follow up with you with questions and/or to start scheduling.
Your time and talents are valuable, and in recognition of this stipends are available for community trainers.
Help build our local movement! Sign up to be a trainer today and share your skills!
Call for Artists – The Unsung Voices Art Exhibit
Unsung Voices is a traveling art exhibit organized by members of the LI Fund Excluded Workers (FEW) Coalition, an assemblage of local worker and community organizations. The exhibit is designed to shed light on the experiences, struggles, and triumphs of workers who have been marginalized or overlooked due to inequalities that transcend all aspects of their lives. In 2023 the exhibit was displayed at multiple locations, and we are looking to take it on the road again with some new artwork added!
If you are a worker-artist or ally with art to contribute head to this link and complete the submission form!
The LI FEW Coalition advocates for state legislation to support workers like the Unemployment Bridge Program (UBP). UBP would create a permanent unemployment safety net for workers ineligible for traditional unemployment because of the work they do. These workers include freelancers, self-employed workers, cash workers, people in re-entry, and immigrants without work authorization.
Starbucks Workers’ Rights Board
Join LIJWJ and Starbucks Workers United on Thursday February 22 at 6PM for a Workers’ Rights Board hearing to witness the testimonies of organizing baristas as they fight to get their employer to the negotiating table!
Starbucks Coffee is a corporate giant that brings in tens of billions of dollars in business each year. The company markets itself as a progressive company that offers its employees “transparency, dignity and respect.” This contradicts the realities of Starbucks’ culture behind the cafe counter, where workers instead experience an environment of harassment, abuse, and retaliation.
When workers seek accountability through internal channels, toxic managers are protected in exchange for their blind loyalty to the company. Despite the risks involved, baristas have spent years fighting through a gauntlet of toxicity and union busting to seek justice.
LIJWJ’s Workers’ Rights Board will bring these organizing workers and community together to give a clear accounting of how Starbucks treats their employees. In addition to hearing directly from workers, community members are also invited to speak and have their testimony entered into the record. Testimonies and board recommendations to Starbucks will be issued in a report LIJWJ will publish following the hearing.
The testimonies will be overseen and recorded by a board of commissioners including Nassau County Legislator Siela Bynoe; Suffolk County Legislator Sam Gonzalez; Rashida Tyler, Dep. Dir. NYS Council of Churches; Mary Anne Trasciatti, Director Hofstra Labor Studies; and Juana Torres, Esq.
To register follow this link!
Updates from our Friends at NYSNA
Peconic Bay Medical Center and Long Island Jewish Valley Stream
Citing unsafe staffing and low wages, NYSNA announced the results of a strike vote at these two facilities at a rally last Thursday. 99.5 % of the union members voted to strike, meaning unless the hospitals agree to bargain the nurses will hit the picket line and need community support! Please stay tuned for updates and asks from the nurses!
St. Catherine of Siena’s Maternity Ward
“As of midnight on Feb. 1, St. Catherine’s administrators suspended services in the maternal child health unit. Unless they find new doctors to replace the ones who left, labor and delivery, neo-natal intensive care, and perinatal healthcare services will no longer be available to Smithtown and the surrounding communities.
It seems that St. Catherine administrators want to make this closure permanent. They are working with the New York State Department of Health on a permanent closure plan and have circulated a health equity impact survey, which is required by law. The deadline to complete the survey is Feb. 8. Make your voice heard today!
- Patients and community members should take the community survey.
- Allies who live outside the area should take the stakeholder survey.
We know you have a lot to say about this closure. Our petition to keep St. Catherine of Siena maternal child health unit open for care has now reached 1,400 signers! So many community members have weighed in and commented about how important these services have been to their families. So many people have shown support for the St. Catherine nurses who serve this community.”
Unemployment Bridge Program Phonebanking
Did you know that the legislators who have the power to pass the Unemployment Bridge Campaign have phones? They do! And it so happens that phones are a great way to let these folks know you support this legislation. It’s especially important to call since it seems many of them are unaware how vital money is for excluded workers to buy food, shelter, and medical care when they’re out of work through no fault of their own!
Help educate these legislators by filling them in on how some of our most vulnerable community members can benefit from this easily implementable program by joining a phonebank!
This event will be hosted on Zoom on Friday March 8 at 10AM. The beginning of the phonebank will be a ‘huddle’ where participants will be provided with talking points to use during calls, get oriented, and go over any questions to make sure everyone feels informed when they call. We’ll then all go off mic, make our calls, and reconvene to debrief our experiences calling. Not only is making calls like this more effective in a group, but also deepens our organizing community as we work together!
Head to this form to register!
Lastly, please consider making a DONATION to our Solidarity Fund. Every day workers struggle in poor conditions or lose work so that bosses and shareholders can stack their piles of money even higher. Wealth buys power and influence, meaning that workers are at a huge disadvantage in trying to reach the public’s ears. The Solidarity Fund is meant to enable workers to have their voices heard, and without support they will continue to be omitted from the dialogue.
In solidarity,
Long Island Jobs with Justice
Long Island Jobs with Justice 